


Baby it's Alright, You're Born to Fly

by AHighFunctioningPsychopath



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: AU, Depressed!Derek, Helpful neighbour!Stiles, M/M, Slow Build
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2012-12-04
Updated: 2012-12-16
Packaged: 2017-11-20 07:17:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,703
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/582731
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AHighFunctioningPsychopath/pseuds/AHighFunctioningPsychopath
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The leaves are still falling from the trees when Stiles Stilinski moves in to the house next door to Derek. The first he knows of it is a knock at his door, and when he opens it, there is a skinny twenty-something standing there, with large doe eyes and stupidly pink lips introducing himself as Stiles Stilinski, his new neighbor.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

The house was empty, without Laura. It was quiet, there was no one teasing him, or laughing, or stumbling through the hallway in a rush. There was only Derek, and his own footsteps echoing when he paced the empty hallway, just to bring some sound back into the place. It hurt, but he tried not to think about it. He just tried not to let the silence deafen him. He just stayed lost in his own thoughts, and the memories of Laura. The one and only therapy session he attended did nothing to help him, he spent the hour staring out the window, resolutely ignoring the therapist's attempts to get him to open up to her. She gave up after 45 minutes. They spent the last fifteen minutes in total silence, Derek glaring at the tree outside her window. She smiled at him when he left, like he'd done something other than waste her time. He didn't know how to react, so his face had slipped into its usual scowl, because that's what he does when something surprises him, because it's easier. He didn't go back. 

 

The therapy session had only been because of Erica's insistence. Erica is his friend, he knows, but he can't remember the last proper conversation they had. These days it's all shouting at him, telling him Laura wouldn't want him sitting around moping, and that it wasn't healthy, and he really needed to do something about it. When he ignores her too, she sighs, and puts her head in her hands. He feels bad, especially when she asks him quietly, to please get out of his house. He doesn't though, and that makes him feel even worse. The weather outside seems to be mocking him, the sweltering sunshine obnoxiously intruding into his house. It’s not fair, none of it. It’s really fucking unfair. Derek grits his teeth, and tries not to let it show.

 

*

 

It’s autumn when Erica stops coming over to his house. She calls, and texts, but the entire month of September comes and goes without a single visit. He’s resigned himself to the fact that it’s his fault, and it wasn’t as if he’d done anything to make her want to keep coming, and that this was even what he’d been trying to achieve, but it still hurts, but he doesn’t blame her for beginning to give up on him, not at all. He deserves it. The leaves are still falling from the trees when Stiles Stilinski moves in to the house next door to Derek. The first he knows of it is a knock at his door, and when he opens it, there is a skinny twenty-something standing there, with large doe eyes and stupidly pink lips introducing himself as Stiles Stilinski, his new neighbor. Then, when Derek is in the middle of thinking about _what kind of a name is Stiles?_ He realizes Stiles is looking at him, waiting for him to answer a question he hadn’t been listening to. 

“Derek Hale…?” it comes out sounding more like a question than an answer, because after months of not talking to anyone, Derek is even worse at normal human conversation than he ever was, Laura used to laugh at him, for those times where she claimed he couldn’t use his words like a normal human being, but Stiles doesn’t seem to mind, as he’s apparently given the right answer. He beams at him, his smile almost stupidly big for his face before he leaves with a cheery 

“Bye Derek!” and goes over to attempt to help the guys moving his furniture, attempt being the key word, as Derek watches him trip over himself trying to lift a table. It’s only later he realizes that those words are the first he’s spoken to anyone in weeks, something in his chest clenches, and he isn’t sure what, so he tries to ignore it.

 

*

 _Of course_ Stiles would choose _today_ to lock himself out, of course he would. Because he is an idiot, and left his keys inside when the temperature outside is below freezing, and frost is threatening and it’s so cold that Stiles can see his own breath. He sighs dramatically, and leans against the wall as he calls the locksmiths, only to be informed that they wouldn’t arrive for an hour or two, and he would be stuck outside in the freezing cold with only a scarf to shield himself from the biting wind. He sniffs morosely, -because morose-ness is totally called for- as he considers his options. The list is stupidly small. His phone is dead, so that rules out his dad, Scott, or even Isaac. Jackson was never even an option. He rubs his nose, stupid him moving out and living too far away from his friends that he couldn’t call on them in his time of need. Resigning himself to spending an hour outside, with only himself for company, the door to the house next to him swings open to reveal his attractive, mysterious recluse neighbor, Derek. Stiles grins.

 

“Hey, Derek!” Derek freezes in front of his mailbox, and his head shoots up. He looks like a deer caught in the headlights, and Stiles would have laughed if his face was less numb. Stiles had only spoken to Derek once, to introduce himself when he moved in, as was the neighborly thing to do. The other man had seemed like someone who didn’t have very many friends, he hadn’t listened to anything Stiles had said to him, nor had Stiles seen him leave his house much, in the two months the two had lived next door to each other, he didn’t really know anything about the man, apart from the fact that he had amazing cheekbones, - something which he had noticed in _passing_ \- but, desperate times called for desperate measures.

“Umm... this is kind of embarrassing, but, I’ve locked myself out, and the locksmith said he wouldn’t be here for a while, and I was kind of wondering if I could stay in your house…” he manages to get it all out in one breath, cheeks coloring at how he must sound. “Just… for a while,” He clarifies, Derek just stares at him blankly, like he’s confused that Stiles is even talking to him. He blinks, then jerks his head,

“Sure.” The word is quiet, and barely there, but Stiles hears it, he is in Derek’s front garden before Derek has even finished taking his mail out of the mailbox, and he walks in step with Derek, to his door. It takes all of two point five seconds, and Derek opens the door without looking at him. He steps in, and turns around to look at Stiles, still looking ridiculously awkward, and unsure. Stiles rubs his nose again, trying to regain the feeling in it, because of this, he enters Derek’s home with his usual amount of awkward grace, that is to say he trips over his own foot sideways and nearly crashes into the wall. Derek thankfully does not catch him, and turn this into the shitty Ana-meets-Christian scene from _Fifty Shades of Grey_ , (which Stiles is ashamed to say that he’s read). 

He narrowly avoids faceplanting the wall, and rights himself quickly, turning his head up sharply, pretending that he walked into the house normally without tripping over himself, and tells himself very firmly to _stop thinking about Fifty Shades of Grey_. The door swings shut behind him, and suddenly Stiles is very aware of the silence, and the fact that Derek has spoken three words to him in the entire time they’ve known each other and that right now, Derek is looking almost hopelessly intimidated by Stiles of all people. He looks a little helpless, and it’s sort of puppy-ish, but then he seems to remember himself and schools his face back into its usual expression of tight muscles and hard lines, and appears to be deep in thought, before he asks if Stiles would like some coffee. Coffee sounds like an extremely appealing prospect to Stiles’ frozen self, at the minute. 

_“Please!_ " he moans, “I’m _frozen!_ ” he emphasizes this by shivering, very loudly, and then proceeds to walk straight past Derek into his own kitchen, because Derek is obviously in need of help at how to cope with new situations, and Stiles, being the helpful citizen that he is, is more than willing to show him how. He stands in the middle of Derek’s kitchen, taking in the decidedly feminine décor, and realizing that Derek is standing almost nervously in the doorway.  
“Umm.” He starts, feeling slightly awkward, and he wonders if he is intruding in something personal. “So… Mugs?” he ventures. This seems to break Derek out of his thoughts, and he points to a cupboard by Stiles’ head, 

“There.” Stiles turns and takes out two mugs, feeling Derek move behind him. Derek takes the coffee out, and flicks the switch on the kettle, before shuffling next to Stiles. He picks up one of the cups Stiles had taken out (novelty, with a picture of a wolf on it) and puts it back in, taking out a plain, blue cup instead. Setting it down without a word, he moves back to the coffee, and busies himself with the kettle. 

“Okay…” Stiles mutters to himself, “Umm, is that mug out of service? Is that why we can’t use it?” he says louder, attempting to kick-start a conversation, because there is no way he is spending an hour here sans talking. Shaking his head, Derek purses his lips, 

“It belongs to someone else” he says, pausing, “I mean, belonged.” He looks away from Stiles, and brings the now boiled kettle over, to pour the water in, resolutely refusing to look back at Stiles, who is currently feeling like a bit of a dick for pointing it out. He should’ve just chalked it up to strange behaviour, he of all people knows how painful it is when someone inadvertently mentions lost loved ones, especially soon after their death. He wonders if that’s why Derek is such a recluse, if he has lost someone close to him. Taking the coffee from Derek’s hand, he resolves to fix his mistake, and change the subject of their not-conversation. He looks around, for clues about Derek’s interests.

“So… Katy Perry?” He says, spotting a brightly coloured CD on the table, it looks extremely out of place, in Derek's house, “You like her? I didn't peg you for a Katy Perry guy but-“

“It’s not mine.” Stiles stops mid-sentence.

“Oh.” He takes a sip of his coffee, to escape the terribly suffocating awkwardness of the conversation. Making a face at the taste, he scrambles for the sugar, dumping in several spoonfuls and stirring before tasting it again. He smiles, half at the coffee, (which is now perfect) and half at the faintly horrified expression on Derek’s face, so faint it’s barely there. He smirks, “So I like it with so much sugar in it that it’s barely coffee. Sue me.” He clutches his mug closer before taking another sip, “Mmmm.” Derek snorts.


	2. Chapter 2

After their remarkably unproductive encounter, in which Stiles had learned absolutely nothing about Derek -bar that he had _possibly_ suffered a bereavement recently-, he doesn't see Derek leave his house for a whole week. It's almost as if Derek's exceeded his allowance of seeing other people all in one go during his single conversation with Stiles, and is staying inside to restrain himself from the temptation of socialising. He thinks about maybe knocking on his door, just to check if he's okay, because he really does _not_ want it on his conscience if Derek had trapped himself in his house and was starving himself to death. He is still wondering this when he ventures to fetch one of his college textbooks from his Jeep. His precious Jeep is currently not working, and he's saving up pay for a mechanic to fix it, so he was having to walk everywhere in the meantime. Which sucked. Big time. So he sits in it a while, clutching his literature textbook in one hand, and absentmindedly stroking the steering wheel with the other. He's staring at Derek's door, and voicing his thoughts aloud, and can therefore be excused when there's a tap on his window, and he lets out an -extremely manly- squeak. He can barely register that there's a woman standing at his window, before she's making an impatient signal for him to roll down the window. He complies, and the window is only just been rolled down when she's asking him if he lives in the house next door to Derek Hale. He squints at her. She doesn't _look_ like a serial killer, but she _does_ look fairly threatening, what with her leather jacket, and dangerously red lips. He licks his lips, and nods.

"Have you spoken to him?" She demands, tossing her hair back. Stiles opens his mouth to point out that her behaviour is _rude_ and tell her (very politely) that his father is the Sheriff, but he catches the glint in her eye and decides not to. Instead, he nods, before blurting out;

"Who are you?" The woman's face softens at this, and she seems to realise that yes, Stiles is about five years her junior, and she is an intimidating person who needs to tone down her intimidating.

"My name's Erica. Erica Reyes. I'm a friend of Derek's." Stiles eyes her suspiciously;

"Why do you want to know if I've spoken to Derek?" He really wants to ask her if she's his really possessive girlfriend (he wouldn't be surprised), or maybe they're both part of some weird cult, compromised entirely of extremely attractive individuals who are unable to communicate nicely with other inhabitants of the earth.

Erica pauses, and sighs. She seems to be searching for words, and pulls her jacket a little tighter over her, as the November wind blows.

"He... He's been through some stuff, recently. And, I think talking to you might have done him some good. He's been speaking to me. You should keep doing it." That only served to confuse him more, but he soldiers on, determined to get to the bottom of the enigma that was his neighbour, and why it was an achievement that said neighbour was _speaking_. 

"... What kind of stuff? And how can _I_ help? Not a shrink, or anything. I'm a literature student. I don't even have a _job_. I'm pretty sure I'm extremely unqualified to help him with whatever problems he may be having-" He is cut off when Erica _growls_ at him, seriously, who even _growls_ at people? 

"Just do it." She hisses, all previous allusions of kindness vanishing, and just like that, she turns around and leaves. Her blond hair bouncing as she slips into her car and promptly zooms off, leaving Stiles a little bit dumbstruck. 

*

"For the _last time_ Stiles, you aren't _scared_ of Erica. She's not scary. Or dangerous looking. At all. You just think she might have a point. You haven't seen Derek leave his house in a week. He might be starving. You're just being a good neighbour. At her suggestion." Stiles voices aloud, trying and failing to convince himself that he was going over to Derek's out of the goodness of his heart and not because he was worried Derek's friend would castrate him. Erica hadn't left any _actual_ threats, but she was a little scary anyway. So Stiles had made a little extra food than he would've usually, and boxed it into a Tupperware, ready to give to Derek. Just to check how he was. And to make sure he was eating, because Stiles would really be lying to himself if he didn't say he wasn't at least a _little_ worried. 

*

So that's why he's currently standing at his door, clutching a Tupperware and attempting to muster up the courage to go next door. He doesn't even know why he _needs_ to muster up the courage, but for some reason he feels stupidly nervous about inviting himself over to Derek's. It's only _Derek_ he was over there last week for gods sake. So why the fuck is he so nervous?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm less than pleased with this chapter. It's far shorter than I'd planned, and I was supposed to include the next scene as well. I also think this writing is sub-par. 
> 
> Also, I was supposed to have finished this chapter over a week ago. I WAS intending to write it during my IT lessons, but, alas, my teacher decided I actually needed to get some work done for once. Blame him.

**Author's Note:**

> Umm. I tried pretty hard with this. I hope you like it!


End file.
